Isaiah 40:25-31
Matthew 11:28-30
Today’s text from Isaiah continues the themes of God’s promise of rescue and re-assurance. The words of prophesy re-assure Judah that God is more than able to subdue the power of Babylon. God is the original creative agent in the world and cannot be confined by anyone. His power is cosmic and even the most powerful of the world’s nations pose no threat. Isaiah makes appeal to the beauty and power of the whole created order:
‘Lift up your eyes and look.
Who made these stars
if not he who drills them like an army,
calling each one by name?‘
Before I entered the monastery, I took a month-long trip to Kenya. I spent one week on a ‘People and Places’ safari, travelling to the desert region of Turkana in an open truck. As we travelled between camps I spent many hours looking at the night sky. I was mesmorised by the clusters of stars that felt close enough to touch. I joked to myself that with my entry into the monastery just weeks away, I was busy filling my inner landscape with the night sky of Turkana. In that joking there was more than a grain of truth.
Take some time to look at the night sky this week. Read the text from Isaiah. Let God speak to you.